Apparatus and method for gaming

• US 9,415,303 B2
• Filed: 11/10/2009
• Issued: 08/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Roberts, Linda, Chang, E-Lee, Sung, Ja-Young, Barrett Schultz, Natasha, King, Robert Arthur
• Primary Examiner(s): Deodhar, Omkar
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lee, Wei
• Application Number:
  US12/616,051
• Publication Number:
  US 20110111854A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,471 Days
• Field of Search: 463/30, 463/42, 725/38
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/338 using television networks
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/53 involving additional visual information provided to the game scene, e.g. by overlay to simulate a head-up display [HUD] or displaying a laser sight in a shooting game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/63 by the player, e.g. authoring using a level editor
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/822 Strategy games; Role-playing games A63F13/825, A63F13/828 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/87 Communicating with other players during game play, e.g. by e-mail or chat
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/535 for monitoring, e.g. of user parameters, terminal parameters, application parameters, network parameters
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/572 Communication between players during game play of non game information, e.g. e-mail, chat, file transfer, streaming of audio and streaming of video
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1016 IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/102 Gateways arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways, H04L12/66
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2221 being a cable television head-end CATV in broadcast systems H04H20/78
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2225 Local VOD servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2743 Video hosting of uploaded data from client
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41265 having a remote control device for bidirectional communication between the remote control device and client device unidirectional remote control device H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44222 : Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programs or purchase activity monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 : for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4758 : for providing answers, e.g. voting
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 : communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6405 : Multicasting data broadcast and multicast in packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6408 : Unicasting
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 : IP
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 : Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a system having a controller to collect one or more user-generated remarks from each of a plurality of computing devices where the one or more user-generated remarks are temporally associated with media content in the form of a gaming session presented at the plurality of computing devices and present the one or more user-generated remarks as an overlay combined with the gaming session as a presentation to at least a set among the plurality of computing devices. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a system including a processor, media content comprising a play sequence and settings of a recorded gaming session of a gaming console;

providing, by the system, an overlay combined with a presentation of media content at each of a plurality of computing devices to illustrate a collection of user-generated comments temporally associated via a time line with portions of the play sequence that are presented, wherein the time line is included in the overlay;

receiving, by the system, selections to drill down on the settings at the portions of the play sequence that are presented;

receiving, by the system, wireless communication signals from a first communication device of the plurality of computing devices, wherein the wireless communication signals comprise an internet address link to first user-generated comments that are captured at the first communication device;

extracting, by the system, the first user-generated comments via the internet address link; and

collecting, by the system, the user-generated comments from the plurality of computing devices, wherein the user-generated comments are associated with the settings that are subject to the drill down, wherein the user-generated comments comprise the first user generated comments that are received from the first communication device

wherein the user-generated comments are further associated with a range of the media content comprising a first time prior to the user-generated comments and a second time after the user-generated comments, and wherein the first time and the second time are set by one of the plurality of computing devices.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user-generated comments collected from the plurality of computing devices are from an audience of the recorded gaming session, wherein a portion of the audience is represented by a group of avatars provided in the overlay, and wherein the time line includes iconic annotations positioned along the time line that represent the user-generated comments.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of computing devices comprise a portable communication device and a gaming console.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein a gaming console records a play sequence in the gaming session for subsequent presentation on a media source network.

5. The method of claim 4, comprising enabling selectively drilling down in the play sequence to analyze a player'"'"'s play sequence and settings.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the gaming session is a virtual world setting and the user-generated comments are comments associated with the virtual world set up.

7. The method of claim 1, comprising identifying a subset of the plurality of computing devices generating a subset of user-generated comments upon which the user-generated comments can be shared.

8. The method of claim 7, comprising transmitting, to the subset, identification information.

9. The method of claim 7, comprising receiving, from the subset, a request to establish the gaming session.

10. The method of claim 1, comprising receiving from a second computing device a request to view and add a first comment upon the gaming session, wherein the request includes a user-defined temporal window for a corresponding portion of the media content that is to be included with a second comment generated by the second computing device, wherein the second comment and the corresponding portion of the media content is provided by the system to a recipient communication device without providing an entire copy of the media content.

11. A system, comprising:

a memory to store executable instructions; and

a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the executable instructions, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations comprising;

receiving media content comprising a play sequence and settings of a recorded gaming session of a gaming console;

presenting portions of the play sequence and the settings to a plurality of computing devices to illustrate a collection of user-generated remarks associated with the play sequence and the settings;

receiving selections to drill down on the settings at portions of the play sequence that are presented;

receiving wireless communication signals from a first communication device of the plurality of computing devices, wherein the wireless communication signals comprise an internet address link to first user-generated remarks that are captured at the first communication device;

extracting the first user-generated remarks via the internet address link; and

collecting the user-generated remarks from the plurality of computing devices, wherein the user-generated remarks comprise the first user generated remarks that are received from the first communication device, wherein the user-generated remarks are temporally associated via a time line with the media content, wherein the user-generated remarks are associated with a range of the media content comprising a first time prior to the user-generated remarks and a second time after the user-generated remarks, and wherein the first time and the second time are set by one of the plurality of computing devices.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the computing device is a portable communication device.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the user-generated remarks collected from the plurality of computing devices are from an audience of the gaming session.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the system operates with a gaming console that records a play sequence in the gaming session for subsequent presentation on a media source network.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the system operates with a computing device that records a play sequence in the gaming session for subsequent presentation on a media source network.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise selectively drilling down in the play sequence to analyze a player'"'"'s play sequence and settings.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the gaming session is a virtual world setting and the user-generated remarks are comments associated with the virtual world set up.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions which, responsive to being executed by a processor, facilitate performance of operations comprising:

receiving media content comprising a play sequence and settings of a recorded gaming session of a gaming console;

presenting the media content and a collection of user-generated remarks at each of a plurality of computing devices;

receiving selections to drill down on the settings at portions of the play sequence;

receiving wireless communication signals from a first communication device of the plurality of computing devices, wherein the wireless communication signals comprise an internet address link to first user-generated comments that are captured at the first communication device;

extracting the first user-generated comments via the internet address link; and

collecting the user-generated remarks from the plurality of computing devices, wherein the user-generated comments comprise the first user generated comments that are received from the first communication device, wherein the user-generated remarks are associated with the settings that are subject to the drill down, wherein the user-generated remarks are temporally associated via a time line with media content in a form of the gaming session presented at the plurality of computing devices, wherein the time line includes icon annotations representing the user-generated remarks, wherein the user-generated remarks are associated with a range of the media content comprising a first time prior to the user-generated remarks and a second time after the user-generated remarks, and wherein the first time and the second time are set by one of the plurality of computing devices.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise presenting the user-generated remarks in the time line in an overlay combined with the gaming session as a presentation to a set among the plurality of computing devices, wherein the overlay includes selectable control buttons and avatars representative of a portion of the plurality of computing devices.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise presenting the user-generated remarks in the time line in an overlay combined with the gaming session as a presentation to a set of the plurality of computing devices as the gaming session is being rebroadcast utilizing a pre-recorded gaming session.